


Tearing up the Pavements of Skeleton Hell

by Orlofsky



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 08:43:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2541452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orlofsky/pseuds/Orlofsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prouvaire snatched his hand back and, in the absence of eyebrows or a mouth to frown with, clacked his naked mandible.  "I have outdone myself indeed, though not in the way you seem to think.  I am a puppet of no man; I have abandoned the artifice and illusion of this world.  I have become Truth, I have pared myself down to essentials,  I have abandoned my flesh prison.  More prosaically, I have also changed lodgings."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tearing up the Pavements of Skeleton Hell

"Amazing!" Joly lifted the skeleton's hand, flexing and unflexing its fingers and searching for traces of fine wiring between the metacarpals. "A perfect specimen, Prouvaire! I can't tell at all how you're making it move, or where you're throwing your voice from. You've outdone yourself!"

Prouvaire snatched his hand back and, in the absence of eyebrows or a mouth to frown with, clacked his naked mandible. "I have outdone myself indeed, though not in the way you seem to think. I am a puppet of no man; I have abandoned the artifice and illusion of this world. I have become Truth, I have pared myself down to essentials, I have abandoned my flesh prison. More prosaically, I have also changed lodgings."

"Ah! Courfeyrac mentioned that you had!" Laigle clasped Prouvaire's shoulders, stroking his scapulae through the threadbare velvet, and Prouvaire leaned his head back against his friend's waistcoat with a click of gold buttons against bone. "He said you'd moved somewhere terribly political. Are you his neighbor now, in the Rue Verriere? Or shall you fan the flames of revolution somwhere else? The medical school perhaps? The catacombs?"

"Skeleton Hell."

Joly froze, and left the examination of Prouvaire's phalanges to stare searchingly into his empty eye sockets. "Skeleton Hell -- Jehan, forgive me, but the Skeleton War is no place for a poet."

Prouvaire clattered indignantly. "That's not what either of you said when Byron went to Greece."

"Byron _died_ in Greece!"

"He died of _illness_ because he hadn't the sense to _abandon his mortal flesh prison_ \--"  
  
"Enough." Laigle scraped a chair across the floor and sat down between them. "Jehan, would you really abandon our cause to fight the Skeleton War? We won't try to stop you if that's what you want, but --"  
  
"I could never abandon my friends!" Prouvaire grasped their hands, turning his face between Joly and Laigle as if begging them to understand. Despite his skeletal grin he seemed to radiate unhappiness from every bone, but his voice shook with resolve. "I only thought -- there are _so many skeletons_. And how many of them died because of tyranny? How many starved? How many executed? How many resurrected with no ideals or hopes, only the knowledge that there is a Skeleton War and they must fight?" He shook his head miserably. "I have to help them."  
  
Across the room, Grantaire stood up and swayed towards them. "A modern Prometheus!" he cried. "Bring the fires of the Republic to Skeleton Hell. Speak to them of justice, of the rights of man. They will chain you to a rock and the eagle will feast on your liver."  
  
"Haven't got one." Prouvaire raised his chin smugly and brushed some not-so-imaginary dust from his coat.  
  
Laigle nodded thoughtfully. "Then I'll have oysters instead." He stood, offered his chair to Grantaire with a flourish, and strolled off to find the waitress.  
  
Grantaire sat down, poured the last of Joly's bottle of wine into his glass, and clinked a toast against the exposed bone between Prouvaire's shirt sleeve and glove. "All the same, I cannot wait to see skeleton hell when you're finished with it. 'This, like thy glory, Jehan, is to be good, great and joyous, beautiful and free.'"  
  
Prouvaire grinned.

**Author's Note:**

> Grantaire quotes Shelley's _Prometheus Unbound_ , because the road to Skeleton Hell is paved with good pretension.


End file.
